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Friday, September 21, 2012

Special people

There was an interesting contrast in the editorial section of the NY Times today. Paul Krugman and David Brooks talked about the same thing, but from their own perspectives.

Krugman:

...[T]he fact is that the modern Republican Party
just doesn’t have much respect for people who work for other people, no
matter how faithfully and well they do their jobs. All the party’s
affection is reserved for “job creators,” a k a employers and investors.
Leading figures in the party find it hard even to pretend to have any
regard for ordinary working families — who, it goes without saying, make
up the vast majority of Americans.

Am I exaggerating? Consider the Twitter message sent out by Eric Cantor,
the Republican House majority leader, on Labor Day — a holiday that
specifically celebrates America’s workers. Here’s what it said, in its
entirety: “Today, we celebrate those who have taken a risk, worked hard,
built a business and earned their own success.” Yes, on a day set aside
to honor workers, all Mr. Cantor could bring himself to do was praise
their bosses.

[snip]

The G.O.P.’s disdain for workers goes deeper
than rhetoric. It’s deeply embedded in the party’s policy priorities.
Mr. Romney’s remarks spoke to a widespread belief on the right that
taxes on working Americans are, if anything, too low. Indeed, The Wall
Street Journal famously described low-income workers whose wages fall
below the income-tax threshold as “lucky duckies.”

What really needs cutting, the right believes, are taxes on corporate
profits, capital gains, dividends, and very high salaries — that is,
taxes that fall on investors and executives, not ordinary workers. This
despite the fact that people who derive their income from investments,
not wages — people like, say, Willard Mitt Romney — already pay
remarkably little in taxes.

Where does this disdain for workers come from? Some of it, obviously,
reflects the influence of money in politics: big-money donors, like the
ones Mr. Romney was speaking to when he went off on half the nation,
don’t live paycheck to paycheck. But it also reflects the extent to
which the G.O.P. has been taken over by an Ayn Rand-type vision of
society, in which a handful of heroic businessmen are responsible for
all economic good, while the rest of us are just along for the ride.

I guess we’re all supposed to be talking about how to build the middle
class these days and look askance at the top 1 percent. But would you
mind if I interrupted this cultural moment to point out that capitalism
is an inherently elitist enterprise?

Prosperity is often driven by small enclaves of extraordinary
individuals that build new industries and amass large fortunes. These
driven, manic individuals are frequently unpleasant to be around. But,
if your country is not attracting and nurturing them, you’re cooked.

He talks about an interesting 'job creator" [my choice of words] named Elon Musk, and concludes:

Today, grandiosity is out of style. We’ve just been through a financial
crisis fueled by people who got too big for their britches. We’ve got an
online and media culture that specializes in ridiculing grand people.

[snip]

But, if growth is ever going to rebound, the U.S. will need a
grandiosity rebound and the policies that encourage rich people with
brass: immigration policies that attract people like Musk, tax rates
that encourage risk and government policies that boost them along
(SpaceX has benefited greatly from NASA, and Tesla received a big
government loan).

Most of all, there has to be a culture that gives two cheers to
grandiosity. Government can influence growth, but it’s people like Musk
who create it.

Currently Reading

In Defense of a Liberal Education, by Fareed Zakaria. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, the damn Kindle edition doesn't include the publication date.

"The New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof has pointed to three ideas associated with the humanities that have positively shaped the world. First, he notes the philosopher Isaiah Berlin's warning that the belief in a single, all-encompassing truth inevitably produces blind arrogance, possibly leading to dangerous consequences. Second, he highlights John Rawls's contribution to political thought: that the most just society would be the one you would choose if you did not know how rich or poor or how talented or untalented you were when born into it. ... Lastly, Kristof highlights the work of Peter Singer, who has brought the treatment of animals and the pain that human beings often needlessly cause them to the fore of our moral consciousness."